>Thankfully, We do not need the USDA to be the only source of info.
 
None of the posts I have read so far have cited the USDA as a source of
information AT ALL.  (And citing a PETA website that talks about what the
USDA said doesn't count).
 
Okay, this is the last time I plan on posting about this issue until I
receive the inspection reports from the USDA on Marshall Farms that I
requested.
 
On the issue of the USDA not doing as good a job protecting animals as they
could.  This may be true it is a big government agency, with lots of semi
independant divisions under its control.  There is nothing wrong with
wanting the government to work better, but if you want results from the
government it would be better to go into it with an accurate idea of what
does and does not constitute substantial evidence.  It would also be a good
idea to try and educate yourself about how the USDA works now, so you or
your group can make reasonable suggestions on how they could improve.
Quoting animal rights activist web pages is not going to be persuasive to
most government officials you contact.  They have seen ALL of this before,
you are not telling them anything new, why would they be interested?
 
For those who might be interested in looking at some of the publications,
mission statements, progress reports etc, of the USDA Service in charge of
Animal inspections, you might find some of the following pages interesting
and/or helpful.
 
APHIS (Animal and Plant Health Inspecton Service)
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/
 
Animal Care Home Page
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/
this has a link to publications that might be interesting
 
to request information on any licensed breeder or distributor of animals
(get the license number from the pdf file referenced on the APHIS
publications page):
 
https://foia.aphis.usda.gov/
or call:      Animal Care- Eastern Region    919-716-5532
or write to:  USDA, APHIS, LPA, FOIA
              4700 River Road Unit 50
              Riverdale, MD  20737-1232
Or e-mail:    [log in to unmask]
 
USDA home page
http://www.usda.gov/welcome.html
 
For a pdf file of lists of breeders and dealers including addresses and
license numbers (Marshalls Farms included), information on the Animal
Welfare Act, Animal Care Reports, and lot of other information:
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ac/publications.html
 
On another note, several references both questioning and supporting the
use of animals in research have been posted, and Lisette has referred to
toxicology tests in numerous posts.  This may not be of interest to many
on the group, but I feel it is worth pursuing, because I feel that it is
an important factor in people's perceptions of Marshall Farms as ''evil''
for selling ferrets and beagles to research labs.
 
I found two excellent articles from Scientific American on the web.  The
first one 'Trends in Animal Research' is (in my opinion) rather unbiased as
to whether animal research is good or bad, and explains how animal rights
groups have been successful in that the number of laboratory animals being
used is decreasing and scientists are using and developing alternatives
when possible.  http://www.sciam.com/0297issue/0297trends.html
 
The second one is more biased as you can probably tell from the title
'Animal Research is Vital to Science', but it does give a very good
perspective about some of the greatest discoveries in science that could
not have been accomplished without animal research.
http://www.sciam.com/0297issue/0297botting.html
 
Like I said, I'm sorry to be harping on this since I know a lot of people
in this list are not interested, but I feel strongly that people should be
aware of how important animal research is to all aspects of human welfare.
I'm not saying that we should feel free to use animals indiscriminately,
but their use is indispensible to many aspects of scientific research
today.
 
Leigh W.
[Posted in FML issue 3184]